LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Members of Occupy Little Rock who have maintained a downtown protest campsite since October said Tuesday they’ll heed a city deadline to clear out but promised that police will have to arrest some of them first.

Protesters spent Tuesday tearing down their camp, which is across from the downtown post office and across the street from the city’s visitor information center. The site afforded the group visibility from busy Interstate 30, where motorists could look down on their signs decrying banks, eroding freedoms and other issues.

Occupy Little Rock spokesman Greg Deckelman said the group will have coffee and doughnuts on hand when the city’s 7 a.m. deadline rolls around Wednesday. About 10 members have decided to submit to arrest, Deckelman said.

The group had tried to get the city to postpone the eviction for a few days in the hope of being able to move to an alternate site, but Deckelman said those plans fell apart and there was no point in postponing the inevitable.

“We will continue to pursue a public place,” Deckelman said.

The group has no unified political view. Some support Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, who just stopped his presidential campaign, while others are focused on the harm they see caused by big banks that foreclose on home loans.

The common thread, Deckelman said, is the belief they have a right to protest around the clock on public land.

Whether or not that happens again, Deckelman said political activism by group members will continue.

“Tents will still be our symbol,” he said.

Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas produced the permit for the group to camp at the city-owned parking lot as a compromise to get the group to move from its original site at the Clinton Presidential Center.

The city’s annual Arkansas Riverfest is set for Memorial Day weekend, three days of music, food, crafts and activities along the Arkansas River. The city uses the parking lot where the protesters have been for bus parking for the event and for groups coming through the River Market entertainment district during the summer tourist season.

Little Rock police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings wouldn’t discuss police plans because it’s an “ongoing operation.” He said the deadline for the group remained at 7 a.m.

Occupy member Mac Miller, 54, a disabled Army veteran, said most members of the group have jobs or are students — not the young hippie types he thinks most people imagine populate the camp.

“We don’t have a drum out here,” he said.

At an afternoon news conference at City Hall, Deckelman and Miller pledged to stay involved in a proposed ballot item that would end corporate contributions to candidates, double to two years the period before lawmakers could become lobbyists and ban lobbyist gifts to legislators. Members also voiced their opposition to home building in the Lake Maumelle Watershed and backed other causes.

“We think ideas should win the day,” Miller said.

The news conference drew some horn blowing from passing motorists and one man heckled, “Get a job!”

At the encampment, members tore down tents, piled up bagged garbage and stacked wooden pallets that campers used under their tents to help stay dry.

“Everything you see here was donated — churches, unions, individuals,” Miller said Tuesday afternoon at the site.

Deckelman said solar panels, propane cylinders and other equipment are going into storage because the group still hopes to find a new place to protest.

Most members have found alternative places to stay. Deckelman gave up his rented home in January to join the group.

Asked if he had a place to stay Wednesday night, he replied, “I’ll be in jail.”